Give a piece of love, and you will get charming rays!

Near the main attraction of Tibet, the Potala Palace, there are numerous tablets with hearts. They say "Give me a piece of love, and you will get charming rays. The Communist Party Committee of the Potala Department of Management." In principle, this could be finished.
In Tibet, I expected to see a miracle, and I saw only the love of the Communist Party of China. Although, maybe this is a miracle? For me, Tibet was more a tourist attraction than a place of power. Crowds of Chinese tourists, endless checks, scanners, frames, incomprehensible rules. For example, in all temples it is forbidden to shoot. Why? Officially, the ban on photography is explained by the fact that gold, which decorates Buddhist temples inside, can fade from flashes. But why not shoot without flashes? And someone connects this restriction with the fact that the Tibetans who are infringed upon their rights want to recoup and establish their own rules somewhere.
01. Tibet is a land of yaks.Yaks are everywhere. Wild and domestic, alive and dead, whole and in the form of dumplings. You can decorate the skull of a yak, and decorate it, for example, with the entrance to the store.

02. So, we start the walk through the old town of Lhasa. In the center there are several blocks with narrow streets and traditional Tibetan architecture.

03. There are several signs of Tibetan architecture: the facade is white or light gray, the walls are slightly inclined towards the courtyard; around the windows - dark trapezoid portals; the building will certainly be decorated with fabrics, such canvas awnings can be seen here. Well, a sign of the current era: on the house will certainly be a Chinese flag.

04. All these white houses stand around the main temple of Lhasa. But do not rejoice: all this is a replica. These buildings were built in the old style relatively recently, almost nothing original here. Much was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Preserved individual objects such as the Potala Palace, and everything else was destroyed. So almost everything that tourists see is a replica.

05. Old Town continues to be built.

06. Modern buildings are also trying to build in the traditional style. This, however, does not interfere with attaching an elevator to the facade.

07. Prayer

08Buddhists make prostrations - the rite, which is a complete bow of the earth. For it, boards are used (sometimes they are wrapped with cloth) and special supports for hands. In fact, the prayer simply stretches over the ground. The surface of the earth must be in the process to touch the forehead.

09. Usually prostrations are made before objects sacred to Buddhists. It could be a temple, a stupa or, say, a mountain. Or even a home altar. In this case, the pilgrims pray in front of the Jokhang temple.

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11. Souvenir shop. Unfortunately, souvenirs all over the world are now the same. In principle, the same can be bought in Moscow and somewhere in India. The souvenir market has been swallowed up by globalization.

12. The woman turns the prayer wheels. The drums depict mantras that allow the worshiper to accumulate wisdom. Pilgrims arriving at the temple rotate each of these drums.

13. Once again the rite of strikes. This person does without boards, but uses supports for palms.

14. The temple and monastery of Jokhang, a sacred place for Buddhists. It was from him that the story of Lhasa began.

15. Photographing is prohibited in all churches; it is not clear why.My guide said that the ban is due to the fact that gold from the flashlights, which are richly decorated with temples, deteriorates from the flash units, but for some reason it cannot be removed even without a flash. Therefore, from inside the temples, I did not photograph, for this is strictly monitored. But I was shooting a video. There was no ban on video anywhere, so soon you will see everything on my channel.

16. Traditional window. These folded curtains above the windows are called scumbum. Once a year they are usually changed to new ones, namely, before Losar (Tibetan New Year), on the last day of the outgoing year. By the way, the next Tibetan New Year will be celebrated on February 5, so these curtains will hang for a long time. And the scambue is removed when one of the family members died. Any passerby can understand that there is mourning in the house when there is no curtain over the window.

17. The temple is richly decorated with gold. In this architecture, more Indian than Chinese.

18. On the right is the Buddhist symbol "endless knot". One of the most common images in Lhasa.

19. Streets of the old city

20. Spin the drum!

21. Grandmothers

22. There are many pilgrims in Lhasa, while there are practically no European tourists. All tourists mainly come from China. For all the time in Tibet, I met maybe a dozen foreigners. They say it is difficult to get permission.In addition, getting here is quite expensive, so many people simply cannot afford such a trip. The authorities of the People's Republic of China want 10 million tourists a year to visit Tibet by 2020, but they are counting on the Chinese. Foreigners who want to go to Tibet are still incredulous.

23. In the old town is a good toilet. To the left of the toilet - a police post, there is visible the company of the military. There are a lot of military in Lhasa, but there are no patrols as such, the military often stand for nothing. Sometimes on the roofs of houses there are observation towers with soldiers who monitor the situation in the city, surveillance cameras everywhere.

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25. If you move a little away from the old city, ordinary China begins. At the overpass - a wish for a successful exhibition of culture and tourism.

26. In the city everywhere plastic hatches. They are all broken, with holes, it is terrible to step on and fail. There is no such thing in any country of the world.

27. Potala Palace, the main symbol of Lhasa.

In Tibetan, "Lhasa" means "Place of the gods." The Chinese have a different version: they believe that the capital of Tibet was named after mountain goats. It is surprising that the Old Tibetan name of the city was preserved in Russian.Modern Tibetans say "Hlasa", the Chinese - "Lasa", the British - "Lasa" (they also ignore the letter h).
It is believed that Lhasa appeared in the VII century - it was then that the Jokhang monastery was built - but it became a full-fledged capital of Tibet only a thousand years later. Both parts of the Potala Palace, the White Palace and the Red Palace, were already built in the mid-to-late 17th century.
28. Due to the high mountains and, as a result, rarefied air, climbing the stairs is rather complicated, takes about 30 minutes, but all the tourists slowly cope.

29. The palace was built as a terrace on a ridge at an altitude of 3,700 meters above sea level.

30. Tickets to the Potala Palace need to be bought for a specific time, but don't bother about it. Since you will still be assigned a guide without fail, he will tell you everything and explain.

31. Opposite the palace is the Potala Square, on which stands the monument to the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet (this is the army of the PRC liberated Tibet from the Dalai Lamas, if you suddenly did not understand).

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34. The White Palace was the residence of the Dalai Lamas, and the Red Palace served mainly as a temple. Now crowds of tourists walk through narrow galleries and look at the tombs of the Dalai Lamas, 8 of these religious leaders are buried here in golden stupas.By the way, one of them, Dalai Lama VI, became famous for being an excellent poet and writing love lyrics. The Dalai Lama was chosen at the age of 14, his vow of celibacy was slightly strained, and therefore in Lhasa he had special houses for dating girls, whom he read poetry all night long. But, as our guide told us, these are just silly rumors, and you shouldn’t believe them.

35. Unfortunately, nothing can be taken inside either. But the routes are well organized.

36. Inside the palace you can be only 50 minutes.

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39. Unusual for Lhasa yellow building.

40. From below, the palace looks like a fortress.

41. Descent

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43. Views of the city from the palace

44. Actually, the city of Lhasa is, according to the Chinese classification, the administrative district of Chengguan, there are only 330 thousand people living in it, something like Smolensk or Kaluga. That is, by the Chinese standards in general the village. Lhasa is a multinational city, but the vast majority of residents are Tibetans (87%). There are also Han Chinese and the hui, already familiar to us, but few of them.

45. Until the middle of the 20th century, about half the population of Lhasa was Buddhist monks. In May 1951, as the Chinese Wikipedia writes, Tibet was peacefully liberated, and in 1959 the Dalai Lama was expelled from Lhasa, and a completely different life began.In 1982, Lhasa was granted the status of a national historical and cultural city of the People's Republic of China, but you know very well how they relate to the historical environment in China. Taking advantage of the sacred trepidation of Western tourists in front of Tibet, the Chinese are actively building Buddhist temples and remakes.

46. ​​Lhasa is located at an altitude of 3650 meters above sea level, and it is still built in the valley. The mountains surrounding the valley are much higher. Not all tourists in Lhasa feel good. But if you forget about the problem of rarefied air and low pressure, there is a rather pleasant mountain climate here. Warm days, cold nights, a lot of sun (and solar radiation). Autumn is considered the most comfortable time of the year, so I was just lucky.

47. Monks

48. Snow Lion, one of the main and oldest symbols of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet in general. He is present on the old Tibetan flags, and BG also has such an album.

49. In Lhasa, checkpoints everywhere. But there is a positive point! Each police station and checkpoints have special stands where lost documents, keys, etc. are located. In general, if you have lost something important, you can always go back and check.

50.The summer residence of the Dalai Lamas is called Norbulingka (yes, it looks like the name of some Siberian village). It is a functioning monastery, but globalization has even penetrated the lives of monks. For example, electricity was conducted in this building and a device was installed with Coca-Cola.

51. Janitors for some reason in military uniform.

52. Summer Palace Building

53. In 2001, Norbulinka was included in the “historical ensemble of the Potala Palace” and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The snag is that, although the palace was built in the 18th century, it was seriously damaged during the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1950. Already in zero, the Chinese authorities decided to fix everything, and it turned out what happened.

54. Memory photos

55. Native whitewash!

56. Fire Safety Posters. On one of them, the bottom white, the inscription: "At a critical moment, real friends are those who are called by phone 119".

57. Old Town at night

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61. The building is guarded by snow lions.

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63. A street near the Jokhang temple, pilgrims pray.

64. Lhasa is gradually captured by hipsters, fashionable coffee shops and other establishments are opening. For example, a cool bookstore.